he’d been conscious in the world. Didn’t it?
“Well, it is good of you to join us at last.”
The greeting was cordial. Almost refined. Or maybe it sounded that way because anyone with that particular kind of accent couldn’t help but sound as though he breathed slightly better air than the rest of the world. It wasn’t exactly a British accent, but it was foreign. Perhaps South African. However, placing it wasn’t the first thing on Leo’s mind.
No. The first thing on Leo’s mind was the shriek of new pain that tore through his shoulder as he tried to move again.
Breathing. I’m breathing.
That was different. This was a difference he had to responsibility when that, count as an improvement. At first. But each breath hurt like hell and any move he made was like nails from a finishing gun punching down in rapid succession, rather like a dotted line that demarcated one territory from another on a global map. The light hurt his eyes, but it didn’t escape him that it was probably shining directly into his eyes precisely for that reason. It wasn’t the first time he’d been on the opposite end of that kind of tactic … and he supposed he knew where this was headed.
“Sorry I kept you waiting,” he said. Wow. He sounded like hell. And talking made him cough and … oh yeah, that was a whole new world of hell right there as well.
“Somehow I doubt that. You aren’t at all apologetic. Not yet anyway. We might get to that eventually.”
Leo fought with the grit scraping between his eyelids and the resolution of his focus. The image that finally crystallized for him was of a tall, athletic man with russet hair that was emboldened by the nut-brown color of his skin. He was seated in a metal chair, some ancient relic from an old office-supply dungeon.
Leo then took note of the fact that he himself was bound at all four points, each wrist wrapped up tight in a leather bracer that not only immobilized his wrist, it immobilized his entire arm. He couldn’t bend or so much as flex any of his arm muscles and the same was true of his legs. Leo fought down a wave of panic, knowing that the feeling would weaken him. And he knew by looking into the cold clear irises of his jailer that he was going to need all the strength he could possibly muster.
“Let me explain something to you. Because,” he injected in a conversational tone, “it occurs to me that you may not even be aware of the curse you have brought down on your own head.”
“Play?” The plaintive word was almost like a pleading whimper off to his right. Leo jerked his head to look in that direction, the sound and tone of that voice sickeningly familiar. It was the voice he had heard giggling over him as he’d been slowly and methodically stabbed to death.
Only somehow he wasn’t dead. His body burned with the memory and pain of each of those injuries, as if he’d had surgery and was in a state of healing, but not far enough in to have found relief from the damage. How long had he been unconscious? Had they repaired him only to—
“I want to play,” Andy hissed, his feelings of impatience coming through loud and clear, his eyes alight with the fire of his desires.
The desire to cause pain. The fire all too easily defined as psychopathic elation. The very same expression that had been on his face with every slow stab wound he’d created. All of it simmering behind the face of innocence, the sweet roundness of a Down syndrome man. A young man, nearly a boy. Leo had never known that a Down-affected adult could exhibit such violent, lunatic tendencies. It just didn’t make sense.
But Andy still had Leo’s knife in his hand and he leaned forward now to poke Leo with two fast, sharp stabs aimed for his left biceps. Leo gritted his teeth against the pain of it, the tensing of his body ripping at all the original wounds he sported. Healing but not yet healed.
“In a moment, Chatha,” the other man said dismissively. And as if Chatha were a dog on a leash, he subsided and sat, waiting with avaricious impatience for his master to let him loose. “Now, I will sum the situation up as efficiently as possible. You see, y around him and huggedupiou have taken something very precious away from